Online Course Engagement and Quality

This project aims to gather data and input from stakeholders to clearly define online course engagement and quality, and to determine regular and substantive interaction expectations that align with federal regulations for distance education courses. 

Data from a student online course experience survey conducted in FY25 showed gaps in student experiences when compared to faculty perspectives in regard to regular and substantive interaction. This project will result in the implementation of a model to address gaps in order to improve students’ overall experience and engagement in online courses. Gaps in student experiences compared to faculty perspectives include:

• Regular faculty interactions: 46% (n=205) of students surveyed selected ‘fewer than half of online courses’ have regular interactions with faculty vs. 20% (n=19) of faculty selected ‘fewer than half of courses’.
• Regularly scheduled/predictable interactions: 30% (n=134) of students indicate ‘fewer than half of online courses’ that had regular faculty interactions had regularly scheduled and/or predictable interactions vs. 18% (n=17) of faculty responses
• Academics and course material interactions: 41% (n=182) of students said in ‘fewer than half of online courses’ faculty interact with students regarding academics and course material vs. 19% (n=18) of faculty
• D2L standardization: 94% (414) of students said faculty using D2L in a similar way is important or very important to their online learning experience vs. 75% (n=69) of faculty